Alanza is mine. The alterations she is making to the timeline are mine. Everything else? Not mine.
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Lucy took her time composing herself, looking around the room more than once. She received reassuring smiles from all the females as well as Gramps. From the three socially crippled man children she got reassuring nods. Mystogan may have smiled at her too, but who knew with that mask on. Finally she took a deep breath and started talking.
"Jude Heartfilia is my father. About a year ago he tried to force me to marry a man three times my age in a business proposition. When I tried to argue with him about it he... He tried to take my magic away." She sniffles a bit and there were angry scowls all around the room. "My mother was a celestial wizard. I got my first keys from her when she died. He- he tried to sell me as some sort of sex slave and take away the only thing I have left of momma! How can a father do something like that?"
Levy, Cana, and Mira gathered around the now openly crying Lucy and made sweet female-supporting-other-female noises. Alanza was glad they were there because she handled crying people only a bit better than Laxus did. Erza was visably pissed, as in she was radiating that visable black pissed-off-wizard energy. All three boys looked upset on multiple levels. They were socially crippled, sure, but part of the reason they were that way was because their own dads were huge dipshits.
"Listen, Blondie," It said something about how long Laxus's arms were that it took so little effort for him to lean forward and reach past all those girls to place his huge hand on Lucy's head. "Around here you are just another Fairy Tail wizard. Where you come from and who you were before don't matter to us. You belong with us and we won't let that cum stain take you back." He gave her head a pat before pulling back. Wow. The contrast between this little speach and the way he had reacted to the Phantom War the first time around was extreme.
"As Laxus has said, Miss Lucy." Freed held his guildmarked hand up. "Once we placed this mark on our persons our fathers no longer had a true hold upon us. We are Fairy Tail wizards."
"Our fathers?" Freed smirked.
"You may not recall, as I left several years ago and you were quite young at the time. I imagine you have seen my father at a few high society functions." Lucy gave a small shout and pointed at him with a look of shock.
"You're Lord Justine's heir! There was a big ruckus when you dissapeared a while back." Laxus snorted.
"Dissapeared my fucking ass." The look of distaste on Freed's face made his feelings on the subject quite clear.
"Indeed. My father knows precisely where I am and always has. I imagine yours does as well, considering he knows where to send Phantom Lord. He knows well enough that you were not kidnapped or anything of the sort."
"Ya know what would be funny?" She was totally about to kill the mood here. "We should have a special fathers day where we dress up a couple dummies and label them 'good dad' and 'bad dad' then throw shit balls at the bad one and give flowers to the good one. We'd end up with, like, three really well fed flowers." There was complete silence and everyone stared at her blankly before Mystogan spoke up.
"You really think we'd have that many?" Cana facepalmed and the whole room broke into laughter.
"Yep. Three exactly. Arman, Igneel, and I bet Macao would get a pansy or something from Romeo." Laxus snorted.
"A dragon who abandoned his kid, a pervy old drunk, and a dad who hasn't been to see his exiled kid in years."
"I will give you that Macao is a pervy drunk, however," Alanza leaned forward and smirked. "I dare you to walk out that door and tell Natsu and Bickslow what you just said about their dads." Laxus eyed the door warily. "I bet even you would be hard put if you pissed them both off at the same time. It's not true anyway. Igneel didn't abandon Natsu and Arman is doing everything he can to deal with the seith ban in Bosco. Trust me he has a lot on his plate right now."
"Laxus please. It would distress Bickslow greatly to hear you speak of Ambassador Pradesh in such negative terms."
"Pradesh? Ambassador Pradesh? You are telling me that the laughing maniac waving his tongue around downstairs is a son of Arman Pradesh!"
"Take the time to get to know him, Lucy. He's a sweetheart really." Lucy stared back and forth between Alanza and Bickslow's teammates.
"Oh... Ok." The blond leaned back in her chair with a slightly confused look on her face. If Alanza had to guess she would say Lucy was trying to wrap her mind around the difference between what she had seen of Bickslow and what she had imagined the sones of her idol would act like. Those two ideas probably couldn't be more different.
"Setting aside the father thing for a moment does anyone have thoughts or ideas on the possible Phantom War?"
"From the information you have shared with us Miss Alanza it sounds nore like the highly probable Phantom War than a mere possibility."
"Yeah. And I say let em come. We'll kick their asses all the way back to Oak Town."
"Well said, Laxus. We are Fairy Tail wizards. You say we beat them the first time, correct? And that was with Juvia and Gajeel opposing us." Not to mention the fact that Laxus and the Thunder Legion were active allies this time around.
"Another thing. It has occured to me that by avoiding or easing certain trials we are avoiding placing some of our wizards in positions where they were forced to grow. One such instance was Elfman. During the origional Phantom War he successfully performed a full body take over. However this was only acheived once Mira's life was on the line."
"Oh dear."
"So we train." Cana's solution was astoundingly simple. "We all train on our own, but it sounds to me like we need to be more actively pushing eachother to get stronger."
"How actively though?" Levy had a whole sheet of notes written up. Alanza wasn't sure they had even spoken that many words. "We can't just go down their and start telling people like Elfman that they have to get stronger for no apparent reason. That will cause crazy rumors and mass hysteria." Alanza was pretty sure the lot of them locking themselves in this room was already going to cause rumors, but whatever.
"The Legion trains together. It's part of what makes them a good team." That would kinda explain why they were considered so strong and went down relatively easily during Fantasia. They split up. "I say Gramps makes that a guildwide practice. Freed and the drunk can probably come up with the best teams for training purposes. Rotate sparing partners and shit like that. We'd end up with a stronger, more unified guild as a whole."
"Agreed."
"Sounds good to me!" Why Laxus felt like he needed Freed to advise him Alanza wasn't sure. The man was obviously plenty smart on his own.
"Miss Cana and I can begin working on that task when we are finished here." Alanza did an inner fistpump. If Freed was busy here it would mean no- "On second thought we will have to postpone the task until tomorrow. Laxus has tasked the Thunder Legion with seeing Miss Alanza outfitted with new shoes and the like. I believe Evergreen plans to spend the rest of the day shoping." Damn. So close.
Mystogan must have caught Alanza eyeing the chalkboard because he stood and silently moved toward it. He dropped a hand onto the top of her head in passing as if to ensure she wasn't floating out of her chair. In surprisingly neat handwritting he listed Freed and Cana's names followed by the word 'training'. He then propped himself against the wall near the corner where his staves leaned. Sitting still for this long had to be hard on a guy who was so constantly on the move.
"I know this is slightly off topic, but I think at some point before we conclude this meeting we should discuss what kind of budget this... Group has to work with." Lucy's business background was showing in a major way. "Alanza for one is not going to be able to go on very many jobs while she helps us organize things here at the guild. She needs a source of income. Also many of the tasks we generate in this room are going to require funds."
"You can just pull what you need from the guild funds child." Lucy rolled her eyes at Gramps.
"That is irresponsible, unorganized, and impractical."
"Actually Master I was going to talk to you about that." Mira gave the Master a sweet smile. "We seem to be running low on funds." Gramps did that thing that happens in anime where the characters turn white and fall over. Alanza had tried to prepare herself ever since her first exposure to Mira's eyes turning into stars, but wgen Gramps ghost floated out of his mouth it was all she could do to stay in her seat.
It took several minutes for Mira, Lucy, and Levy to coak the spectre back into Makarov's body. While most of the room was distracted by that Mystogan filled a price of paper with numbers and words like 'percentage 'fine', and 'alternate income source'. The paper was sitting in front of Lucy when she sat back doAlanza felflt a little stupid when she realized that Mystogan being a prince ment he had tutors and shit growing up. Even though he left Edolas at a young age he was probably highly educated.
"Hmmm. These are good ideas." Lucy pointed to the paper and grinned. "Oh, I like that. We have to do that."
"Why don't Lucy and Laxus look into the budget, not just for us, but for the guild. Mira, could you pull Max aside and see if he has any ideas regarding raising funds for the guild as well as getting outlr name out there more?"
"Sounds like an excellent idea!"
"Wait! Why the fuck am I the one working with Blondie on this?" Alanza rolled her eyes.
"Isn't it obvious? If you want to take over for Gramps some day you need to start with stuff he is Already having trouble handling. Like money." She smirked. "Careful Gramps, or we'll have to take your car keys next." Alanza swore she heard crickets as the room stared at her. "Just... Pretend I didn't say that." They didn't really have cars in Fiore, so that wasn't a thing here. "What's next?" Mystogan added the two tasks they had just assigned to the chalkboard.
"You said Juvia is friends with this Toto guy, right?" Alanza nodded and waited for Cana to make her point. "Then if and when Phantom comes to town we just send her to talk to him."
"That would work." Juvia's magic would all but garantee her a victory over the fire wizard if it came to that anyway. Why were Cana's solutions always so glaringly obvious? "Lucy. I really can't tell you how to deal with your own father, but maybe you should take a day to go... Talk to him. Take a couple guildmates with you to ensure you return to us." She had a lightbulb moment. "Perhapse Loke, for reasons. As well as whoever Freed and Cana have you training with at the time."
"Yeah. I don't really want to, but I guess he will keep doing stuff like hiring Phantom Lord to 'rescue' me if I don't. Loke seems to kinda... Not like me. Like at all."
"It's your magic. He will get over it." Alanza grinned, thinking of all the 'I Love Lucy' banners that were in Loke's future. "Trust me."
"If you say so."
"Right else before we move on to the next event on the timeline?" She cringed inside when she saw the next event. Frenemy. Jellal and the Tower of Heaven. This game of chess was about to get complicated.
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To be continued.